596.
No "moral education" of humanity: but the disciplinary school of scientific errors is necessary, because truth disgusts and creates a dislike of life, provided a man is not already irrevocably launched upon his way, and bears the consequences of his honest standpoint with tragic pride.
597.
The first principle of scientific work: faith in the union and continuance of scientific work, so that the individual may undertake to work at any point, however small, and feel sure that his efforts will not be in vain.
There is a great paralysing force: to work in vain, to struggle in vain.
***
The periods of hoarding, when energy and power are stored, to be utilised later by subsequent periods: Science as a half-way house, at which the mediocre, more multifarious, and more complicated beings find their most natural gratification and means of expression: all those who do well to avoid action.
598.
A. philosopher recuperates his strength in a way quite his own, and with other means: he does it, for instance, with Nihilism. The belief that there is no such thing as truth, the Nihilistic belief, is a tremendous relaxation for one who, as a warrior of knowledge, is unremittingly struggling with a host of hateful truths. For truth is ugly.
599.